The present invention relates to the processing of plant materials, and in particular to a method for providing a reconstituted plant material such as a reconstituted tobacco material.
Cigarettes are popular smoking articles which have a substantially cylindrical rod shaped structure and include a charge of tobacco material surrounded by a wrapper, such as paper, thereby forming a so-called "tobacco rod." It has become desirable to manufacture a cigarette having a cylindrical filter aligned in an end-to-end relationship with the tobacco rod. Typically, a filter includes cellulose acetate circumscribed by plug wrap, and is attached to the tobacco rod using a circumscribing tipping material. See, Baker, Prog. Ener. Combust. Sci., Vol. 7 pp. 135-153 (1981).
Typical cigarettes include blends of various tobaccos, such as the flue-cured, Burley, Maryland and Oriental tobaccos. Cigarette blends also can include certain amounts of processed and reconstituted tobacco materials. Reconstituted tobacco materials often are manufactured from tobacco stems, dust and scrap using papermaking processes. See, Tobacco Encyclopedia, edit. by Voges, pp. 389-390, TJI (1984) and U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,962,774 to Thomasson, et al. and 4,987,906 to Young, et al. See, also, U.S. Pat. No. 4,421,126 to Gellatly, and U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 647,329, filed Jan. 28, 1991, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,143,097 and 710,273, filed Jun. 4, 1991.
It would be desirable to provide an efficient and effective process for providing a reconstitution process for a plant material such as a tobacco material.